Man 'raped two girls within minutes'

A SERIAL sex attacker raped two 15-year-old girls within minutes as he preyed on "vulnerable young women" over a six-year period, a court heard yesterday.

Chichester Crown Court heard that Mark Campbell, 38, indecently assaulted a 12-year-old girl as she walked home from school, a 15-year-old on her way to the shops and a young mother while her three children were asleep in the house - and whose clothes he used to tie her up.

He also sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl as her younger sister slept in the same bed, it was alleged.

He set upon students - one in her bedroom, another in her school common room and the third a foreign student whom he threatened at knifepoint - raped a hotel worker in the staff quarters where she lived and attempted to indecently assault an au pair, the court was told.

Christine Laing, QC, opening the case for the Crown, revealed that although Campbell was first arrested in 2002, it was not until four years later that a DNA sample he had given was tested in relation to the attacks.

The attacks are alleged to have happened in the Bognor Regis and Chichester areas of West Sussex between 1998 and 2004.

Campbell, of Chichester, denies 15 counts; one of attempted indecent assault, two of sexual assault, two of burglary, two of false imprisonment, three of rape and five of indecent assault.

The trial continues.